


Titan

by MissTrips



Category: Pocket Monsters: Sword & Shield | Pokemon Sword & Shield Versions
Genre: Catching a legendary isn't as easy as it looks, Gen, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, I am not done apparently, I blame Twitter, Kabu is not a ninja, Leon and Raihan are stupid in love but won't admit it, Raihan refuses to think about the fact that Lee's mum had sex, but there may be one in his house, dragons are bitey, dragons are possessive, gloria is scottish, no editing we die like robins, ok some light editing, she has a mouth on her, so it's still Gen, some dragons are better at possession than others, squishing is not a solution to your problems, tea is the ultimate social lubricant, this was a four hour brain dump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:20:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24304309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissTrips/pseuds/MissTrips
Summary: No one can catch a titan.But sometimes they can catch you.
Relationships: Leon & Eternatus
Comments: 49
Kudos: 78





	1. Leon

**Author's Note:**

> So this is inspired by many things.
> 
> First By Surfacage's series "And the World Will Turn to Ash" which features legendaries and the humans they own.  
> https://www.surfacage.net/tagged/and-the-world-will-turn-to-ash
> 
> Then Notavodkashots excellent worldbuilding Sword and Shield fics  
> https://archiveofourown.org/series/1660219
> 
> And finally these art pieces on twitter specifically just clawed at my brain.  
> https://twitter.com/redlhz/status/1255397927398322177  
> https://twitter.com/redlhz/status/1254296543839940609/photo/2

Everything Leon knew about dragons he'd learned from Raihan. Once a reporter asked him if it was unfair that Raihan had been the one to breed Leon's dragons, hinting that the Hammerlock gym leader might have some sort of advantage knowing Leon's team that closely, but Leon had laughed at that. Of course Raihan knew his team. The two of them had been fine tuning their teams to face one another for years now, there was little they didn't know about each other.

Dragons were prideful, from the smallest applin to Raihan's ancient duraludon and every flavor in between, they all demanded respect from their trainers. Answer an opening threat display with aggression and the dragon would double down into an actual attack. Once engaged in a fight, a dragon was not prone to fleeing, it would either win or fall. And whatever else the titan that Rose had awoken on top of the spire was, it was at its core, a dragon.

He quickly learned that it definitely had a secondary typing, and while the poison was troublesome, like all dragons it was overfond of fire and Leon recalled his Aegislash for seismitoad, letting her shrug off the furious flames. He didn't know how long he'd hammered at the titan, but his team was nearing their limits when it finally slowed and dropped to the roof. He wasn't entirely sure it was worn down *enough* but charizard only had a few rounds left in her, if he was going to try and catch it, it had to be soon. Having his little brother arrive on scene with Gloria decided him, he had to try now.

Well, he had to try with what he had, which in Leon's defense, he hadn't planned on *catching* a pokemon today and a the few normal balls he had on him were usually meant to be gifted to young children when he visited them on official tours to schools or hospitals. He flicked a hand to his charizard, instructing her to defend his brother and threw. It actually wobbled a few times.

He didn't remember anything after that.

Waking was a fitful, slow and then strange process. He felt cold, the sort of clammy all over ache of feeling sick, but the air that he sucked in was searingly hot and dry. Like standing on the rim of a volcano while having the flu, he decided. There was light around him, a searing, unnatural pinkish purple, the name of the hue escaped him utterly (Sonia probably knew what to call it), but the light didn't seem to go anywhere or illuminate anything. He tried to pick up his head, to look around and discovered he was...stuck. In the light.

"Well, that's not good," he said, his voice dry and whispery. He coughed a few times, but it didn't seem to help.

Somewhere in the space beyond the light, there was a clatter of chitin and bone.

"That's not good at all."

The titan took its time approaching where Leon was stuck, while he couldn't see it, the beast was making no attempt at being stealthy; wings rattling as it circled him, coming closer and closer with each circuit. It was almost familiar, Raihan's flygon liked to circle and buzz his wings at a target while he was sizing them up for an attack. It was the actions of a dragon not as confident of its ability to win as it wanted to be, instead being wary and testing for openings.

Odd. Leon was stuck in weird light without even a single member of his team around... what did it have to be wary about? He coughed again, trying to clear his throat.

"Hello there?"

The titan had a *very* good hiss. Full of poison and hate and oncoming doom with an eerie cutting crystalline tone overlaying it.

"You can't flinch, Lee," Raihan had told him years ago. "When a dragon's trying to test you out? When they're roaring and flashing their claws and making a leap? It's a test. They're trying to see if you're afraid."

"Rai, it's a pretty good bet anyone would be afraid of that."

"If they meant it? If they were going for the kill? They wouldn't make a sound. That's when you have to really watch out. A quiet dragon is one that's on the hunt."

He had no way to move, he had no pokemon to defend him, all he had was Raihan's advice. Leon listened to the oncoming titan and let himself sag into the prison of light, head down, offering no defiance for the dragon to respond to. As it neared, chitinous wings beating in the superheated air, Leon could feel a surge of Pressure coming from the titan, beating against his mind. Stay still... don't flinch... stay silent... let it threaten...

Impact.

The prison of light shuddered and he felt it all the way to his cold, aching bones. Fetid breath washed over the back of his head... the titan could breathe was his wild thought, it was an odd near insectoid skeletal *thing* but it breathed. A half laugh escaped his throat at the absurdity of being relieved at that fact.

//YOU. DARE.//

Leon's head jerked upwards in shock, eyes going wide at how close the titan was, crystalline eyes boring into his, fangs bared and hissing in rage.

//YOU. DARE. LAUGH?//

It could speak? Pokemon could be incredibly smart, sometimes even mimicking human speech, but actually addressing someone in words?

//YOU THINK ME A BEAST?// The titan *roared* at him, a claw coming up to dig abruptly into his side and Leon gasped at the pain. //A CREATURE TO BE PENNED AND USED AS YOU SEE FIT?// The claw tightened and dug in, raking along his ribs.

Awkward, a slightly hysterical part of Leon's mind chimed in with a frantic, suppressed giggle. He had sort of tried to catch the dragon, if only to stop the Darkest Day and protect Galar. Rose had been so determined, and Leon had never been able to influence the Chairman's decisions.

//ROSE?// Came the snarl and Leon jerked with a horrid realization that the titan was reading his *mind*.

A laugh like shattering glass sliced across his skin.

//READ YOUR MIND LITTLE CHAMPION? WHERE DO YOU THINK WE ARE?// The unnatural silvery gaze locked on to him and he couldn't look away. 

"I.... I don't know," Leon responded, stalling for a little time. Trying to figure out how to maybe get a barrier up between himself and the dragon, some way to keep it at bay...

Laughter sliced at him again, but the titan pulled back, it's wide-crowned head tilting at him with a smug air.

//YOU ARE FAR TOO LATE FOR THAT LITTLE CHAMPION. YOU CHALLENGED ME! YOU DARED BATTLE ETERNATUS!// Skeletal wings spread. //NOW YOU ARE MINE.//

Leon's head sagged down as the titan disappeared from view, and then the feeling of pressing dread eased and soon, there was only the distant shift and click of chitin echoing in the dark. Pain burned along his side, the feeling of aching cold settled deeper into his bones no matter how hot the air was around him. He swallowed and tried to cough again, only to wince and bite back a cry as his side protested the motion. Shallow breaths then. The titan had implied that they were ... where? In Leon's mind? In Eternatus's mind? Some odd other realm accessible by titans?

Leon tried to remember what he even knew about titans, and realized that it wasn't much. He'd read about them when he was still young, and thinking he'd travel once he'd stopped being champion so he could maybe see the legendaries that other regions had only well...

He'd never lost.

And reading about places he'd never go and pokemon he'd never see lost its luster rather fast.

Galar was a region without a titan, it was something that was simple fact. Only... it wasn't.

Rose had known. Rose had pieced tales and legends together along with dynamax energy and somehow found Eternatus...

He really should have paid more attention to the text messages Sonia had been sending him. She'd been all excited about the Darkest Day and something about dogs?

An angry roar in the distance.

//THEY ARE NOTHING! MONGRELS! CURS!//

He really wasn't as alone in his brain as he thought he was, if the dragon was still listening.

But still, she'd been talking about statues. And a few years ago, Raihan had taken him on a tour of Hammerlock's vault, and the tapestries with the two young men, the sword and the shield and Raihan had nudged him and commented that it was a shame they couldn't be the heroes on the wall...

He didn't hear Eternatus coming this time. Only the strike and the *pain*.

//YOU WILL NOT SPEAK OF THEM! YOU ARE MINE!//

He lost time, mind stunned by the sheer rage of the dragon's mental projection. Slowly he came back to himself, sounds becoming words again.

//I WILL DEVOUR THEM AND THE WORMS THEY HAVE BONDED TO!//

Memory finally slid into place.

Titan bonding. You couldn't catch a Titan... no one could. But sometimes, you could bond one. Some more easily than others... he had fought Eternatus down and then Hop...

"You broke free of the ball, but Hop was there. With Gloria." The two challengers he had endorsed. The ones that rose all the way to the very top. He looked up and there was the titan, hovering in front of him, rage pouring off the creature. "I fought you to a standstill. Long enough for them to..."

Eternatus *bit*. He should have been dead. But this was... this was his mind.

"Hop and Gloria bonded to the dogs, didn't they? You couldn't stand against them, not alone."

There was a crack. Sharp and close by, not the sick crunch of bone, but more like glass. Leon licked his lips, surprised a little that there was enough moisture on his tongue to do so.

"Dragons are big, possessive, and full of spite, Lee," Raihan had said, dropping the Axew into his hands years ago. "But don't worry, you'll learn how to handle them, can't let my rival be subpar after all!"

"I beat you. And Hop and Gloria weren't letting you get away. You couldn't claim them... you tried for the one person still there. Because if you were bonded to me.... then... you couldn't be sealed away."

//YOU ARE MINE!//

Well, Rai wasn't kidding about the possessive part. Leon tensed an arm, felt the ragged ache of damage done, but more shattering cracking of the prison he was in enabled him to pull a hand free, raise it up and set it against the broad head of the titan looming at him. 

"I'm... yours."

//YES// The feeling of pressure lessened, as if just by words alone he'd changed something between them.

"And you're... mine." The light was shattering all around him, falling away and oh, gods he was so tired. He leaned into the dragon, deciding that a big wide spiky crown of a head wasn't so bad. Kept him upright... ish.

//MINE.// Whether or not Eternatus was agreeing or just reaffirming, Leon didn't know. He was sliding downwards, free of the stasis of light that had held him into darkness, with Eternatus swirling around him.

"It'll be alright. it will." He could feel the tug of real sleep, leading to wakefulness. Leon remembered the traditional words, a bit silly, but it still meant something. A trainer to a pokemon. 

"I choose you."


	2. Raihan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, apparently I am not *done* with this.
> 
> However, I think I might finally have a direction!
> 
> Once again, go read Notavodkashot's awesome series, so much of this is deeply inspired from there, I just sort of took some bits and pieces and went running off in a different direction. Raihan's quagsire is definately from that series.
> 
> And I realize that there is going to be a lot of WTF is going on? Believe me, trying to scruff Eternatus and yell *explain* is not easy! As the answers come, I am writing it down!
> 
> As for who has which titan, I played the Shield version of the game, and this Gloria is pretty much my character, so she bonded to Zamazenta and Hop to Zacian.
> 
> Once more, this is done with little editing, or I will second guess myself all over the place and not post at all as I run off into the weeds going this is all trash and I am horrible!

Raihan knew objectively that he was running close to empty. It had been two days since Chairman Rose had released the titan in Hammerlock and he'd had maybe an hour of sleep, possibly two if he counted the briefing that he'd given his trainers on chasing down the last of the dragons that had gotten out of the breeding grounds behind the gym. Aria had shaken his arm towards the end of it, giving him a worried look and he realized he didn't remember a thing he'd said, though apparently it had made some sort of sense even if he'd apparently snored several times during his speech.

But the last of the rampaging pokemon were finally corralled and either ushered back to the gym, out into the wild area, or reunited with worried trainers. The city itself had taken relatively little damage, most of it being the spire and power plant under the gym. The only upside to the whole mess was that every wishing star and dynamax spot was currently supercharged, so even though half the plant was trashed, what still remained was able to easily keep up with Hammerlock's demand for power. His rotom had chirped at him that there were a lot of messages waiting for him from Macro Cosmo, but frankly the power plant was the least of his concerns.

His job was dragons. Including trying to locate where one very surreal, nightmarish titan had sequestered itself off to. The first day, when everything was going insane and Leon had fought it (and fallen) the titan had fled the city to the south, and buried itself into a den right outside of Hammerlock. Raihan figured that the ice storm swirling outside the city had driven it underground, and one of the other two titans (Three titans? Rampaging around his city? Rose was going to pay for that.) had followed it. But sometime early in the morning, it had vanished from the den and Raihan was going to have to track down where it was now, before people began to panic.

He had a large suspicion that it might have relocated to the Lake of Outrage, the isolated swath of land with powerful, aggressive mon roaming around would have been a perfect place for it to den up. He pulled out flygon's ball, only fumbling it a little when a hand landed on his arm.

"Where do you think you're off to?" Piers glared up at him from under his heavy bangs. The Spikemuth gym leader had been busy on route seven last Raihan remembered, handling the dynamxing outbreak with his sister. Raihan opened his mouth, only for Piers to glare at him harder. "No, don't say anything. It'd just be stupid. I'd ask when you last slept, but the answer is obvious."

"Well, when did *you* get sleep?" he retorted back.

Piers laughed at him. "Last night. Four whole hours. And I ate. Because I'm not a gormless idiot like you or your boy toy."

"I am not dating Lee..." Raihan hissed.

"Right, because that was the important part of what I said, apparently. Have you even been to see him?"

Raihan paused and then shook his head. Mistake. His head kept spinning a bit too much but he gritted his teeth and hung on to being vertical. "Not since Opal showed up the first afternoon with enough fairies to keep him slept." 

Raihan had seen the very aftermath of the fight ontop of the spire. The draconic titan had fled with a second titan in pursuit across the Hammerhead skyline, so Raihan had gone up to find Leon and see if he was in any shape to help with the remaining loose pokemon. He'd arrived to a standoff, charizard crumpled in a fainted heap to one side and Leon hovering in the air, eyes compeletely maddened as he stared down his brother, a very large dog and Gloria.

Seeing his best friend and rival possessed by a titan, eyes glowing, movements jerky and stilted like a child trying to manupulate a marionette was an image that would linger a long time in his dreams. Lee attacked Hop, when the massive dog bowled him over, teeth about to tear out his throat, but Raihan's quagsire landed a yawn, putting him out for the count without further damage.

Hop had then pushed his way between the titan and his brother's limp form and *argued* with the massive creature. It had been of the opinion that slaying Leon was the correct course of action, for so long as the 'Blight' held a bond with Leon, it could not be sealed away again. Hearing the words coming out of Gloria's mouth, the young girl's eyes glowing the same liquid gold as the titan's had been.... very creepy. It was apparently a day for really damned creepy.

"He's my *brother*," Hop had shouted back and finally the massive dog looked away. Goria's eyes faded back to their pale green and her head gave a shake.

"Zamazenta thinks we're being stupid," She said with a rub of her temple. "But he also understands that pack... that family.... is important."

Raihan had helped Hop and Gloria get Lee to the hospital... and then he'd gotten busy. He shook off the memories and Piers's hand. "They don't need me there, taking up wall space. I'm needed out here, fixing things. Thought you'd still be outside Rose's cell, having a congratulatory smoke."

"He's dead."

Raihan stared at Piers for a long moment, trying to process. "Sorry?"

"No, I'm not sorry, but yeah. He's dead."

Raihan's brain scrambled with the information and he gaped at Piers like a magikarp that had just been smacked with a rolled up bit of paper. "How?" Rose had been arrested! He was locked up and Hammerlock's prison was a literal dungeon, sunk deep into the old castle and well-guarded.

"Wasn't me if that's what you were wondering." Piers took hold of Raihan's arm again and began leading him down the road. "I just arrived for the aftermath. Apparently when you're nothing but bones and membrane? You can make yourself rather *thin*."

"The *titan* killed him?" Raihan jerked sideways in shock and nearly fell over. "It's in the city? *When*?" He'd been on the lookout for it!

"This is why you should answer your *phone* Rai," Piers gave him a jerk to keep him upright. "Very early in the morning,"

"When it disappeared from the den it was in..."

"Yes. Stop interrupting. Slipped in through the water outfall tunnels, eeled its way through the sewers like it knew exactly what it was looking for, came up from *underneath* the cells and well...." Piers made an exploding motion with his free hand. "Turned Rose into an ashy smear on the wall and left." Piers let out a short laugh.

Raihan's brain spun. How had it? When would it have? Who even told it where? No one thought even wanted to finish and his feet followed Piers's steady tugging. "Just... bwuh?"

"You need *sleep* Raihan," the Spikemuth gym leader sighed. "And you need to *talk* to Hop and Gloria. They've both said the titans are communicating with them. Only stands to reason that Leon's scaly leech is doing the same."

"Wait. Piers. You think Lee *told* that dragon how to kill Rose? That doesn't even make sense!"

"I'm not thinking anything right now. Because it's all guess work unless Leon wakes up."

"When he does," Raihan stressed. "He's going to." There was the squeak of linoleum under his feet and Raihan frowned. Piers was pulling him into the hospital. He tried to balk and then yelped when Piers gave his arm a twist, putting leverage into pulling him along. "Piers!"

"No. Right now you're an idiot Rai. You need sleep. And there's a shiinotic sitting over your boyfriend happily dusting him up with pollen and it's going to do the same to you."

"He's not my boyfriend..." Raihan hissed again and was cuffed upside the head.

"This is me, not caring about your labels."

Raihan was fairly sure he ought to be offended, and was really sure that he out massed Piers by a lot and could walk away any time now, but his feet were busy betraying him. They turned the corner to the rooms where Leon was and there was Hop, clinging to his mother and looking miserable. Raihan's gait stuttered at the sight and suddenly he really didn't want to be here, but Leon's mother was already looking up at him, and there was a smile that could only be described as brave on her face.

"It's good to see you Raihan," she said softly and held out a hand to him and Raihan wasn't capable of running from that. Her hug was thankfully brief though his composure he knew was cracked and his eyes blurred with barely held back tears. "Lee will be glad you're here."

"He's here to take a nap," Piers put in. "Because he'd sneak off and try and keep doing too much if someone didn't sit on him." Piers gave him a push.

He didn't want to go in... to look, but running in front of Lee's mother? Piers was an *ass* for doing this to him.

It didn't look bad... at first. Like Leon was just asleep. Machines beeping quietly in the corner. It was.... too familiar. It was the details though. 

The heavy restraints on each wrist. 

The IV full of antidotes dripping steadily into one arm. 

The ventilator making sure Lee breathed.

The shiinotic standing silent vigil, ready to slap down the *thing* using Lee like a puppet.

The sickly glow coming from under the thin hospital smock, a line of gashes running along Leon's ribs. A titan's brand.

Everything blurred and he buried his face into his hands, not resisting when Piers pushed him into a chair.

"Sleep you stupid idiot. He's going to need you at your best, not like this." There was a soft chirr from the shiinotic and everything faded away.


	3. Eternatus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eternatus adopts a Worm. Human. Thing.
> 
> Words are hard.
> 
> But biting is easy!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Scrubs at face*
> 
> Trying to get into the headspace of a baby extraterrestrial dragon who has been repeatedly coshed over the head and sent to sleep every time it wakes up isn't very easy.
> 
> This runs mostly concurrently with the first chapter, and ends shortly before Leon manages to reshape the bond between himself and Eternatus by choosing the dragon back.

Again. It had happened //AGAIN//

Worms tearing them into wakefulness, cracking the seals that had kept them contained, thrusting them into a chamber of noise and light and greedy tendrils trying to leech Eternatus's power. They fought their way out. Crashing through the chains, smashing barrier after barrier until they reached the //SKY//.

Oh the sky.

Too //BRIGHT//. Eternatus lashed out at it, piling darkness and concealment and the memories of the endless void where the stars had //SANG// to them so long long ago.

Before Eternatus could decide what to do, they were challenged. 

A //WORM//.

But without those cursed //CURS//, Eternatus would smite this worm and ...

It fought //BACK//.

It held them in place! How dare!

The //WORM// had to die.

But it didn't. It brought creatures to it and battled Eternatus. Pulled them out of the sky and tried to //BIND// them instead!

Eternatus had raged, tearing their way out of the confining ball, but even though it finally fell, the worm had stalled Eternatus too long.

Enough time for the //MONGRELS// to arrive. With little worms, worms bound to the //STINKBAGS// giving them power.

Power to seal Eternatus away.

//AGAIN//

They fought. Of course they fought. But they could see the power shifting away, gathering into chains again.

Bound again.

It could feel the links between wormlings and the //DOGS//, bright and fresh and with so much power that Eternatus could not match.

They thrashed, looking for an opening, a moment to exploit and their gaze landed on the larger worm, lying limp and still on the battlefield. The one that had kept them in check with only their dutiful lesser creatures to aid it.

The //UNBONDED// worm.

Part of Eternatus scoffed at the idea of binding themselves to something so... //NOT THEM// but the alternative was to fall.

Eternatus reached out.

And claimed.

The result was chaos. They grappled with the mind of the worm, smashing wildly at resistance until the body obeyed, attacking the others. It was enough for Eternatus to flee from the spire and bury themselves deep in the ground, away from the //SKY//.

Angry. Hurting.

//FREE//.

Eternatus seethed.

Coils twisting back onto themselves, they huddled in the dirt like //PREY// and hated.

Claws scraped at the entrance to their hole.

//BLIGHT. PLAUGE.// 

Eternatus hissed back at the false-fang bearing //CUR// lingering at the opening. But it would have to put the sword down to pass the opening....

Eternatus paused, feeling the word out in their mind.

Sword. The false fang was called a sword. They had a word for it now...

//CALAMITY. YOUR BOND WILL FAIL. YOUR HUMAN WILL DIE. AND WE WILL SEAL YOU.//

Human? The worms? Eternatus prodded a little feeling the line of the bond, leading it to where the worm... the human.... where it was itself.

Hmm. Eternatus might have made a bit of a mess in here. The worm was trapped and still and no matter how Eternatus batted at it, it didn't respond.

But still, there was something...

Keeping tabs on the false-fanged... the //SWORD CARRIER// Eternatus dug into its bond.

Worms had a self-identity?

How... amusing. Though Eternatus was pleased apparently their claimed worm... human... Leon... was the strongest of its kind. They picked through the memories of battles won with the creatures that bowed to its commands and defeated challenger after challenger. They snarled a bit at //CHARIZARD// and the Leon's //DRAGAPULT// and //HAXORUS//. They remembered those three standing against them.

Dragons? The Leon-worm had //LIKE ME// bending their heads to it? They did not approve of that!

Eternatus needed their bonded to respond to their poking. 

Who was in charge needed to be settled!

~~~~~~~

Rose.

Rose.

//ROSE//

Eternatus picked through Leon's mind, even though their bonded was guarded now that it was more alert, every interaction gave new information. Eternatus snapped and snarled at the worm, but it didn't challenge back and after they felt they had growled sufficent threats to establish who was in charge, they pulled back to examine what they had gleaned from the mind of their Leon-worm.

New concepts.

They did not fully understand //CHAIRMAN// but they did understand that this //ROSE// wanted power. Wanted to chain them down and take their power. And the worm had set Leon to do the binding.

Hah! It was Leon-worm that was trapped and not them!

Leon was now //MINE//.

But in Leon's mind.... Rose claimed Leon as //MINE//

This was a challenge. Rose wanted Eternatus to be //MINE//. Rose claimed Eternatus's //MINE// as its own.

Unacceptable.

They picked through memories and concepts in Leon's mind. This Rose had power, but Leon was also certain that by trying to bind Eternatus that the other worms would fight it? Cage it?

Eternatus pondered over the notion of 'being arrested' and found it... odd.

Enemies should be destroyed.

Rose was an enemy.

//MANGY FLEA BITTEN SWORD MUTT// however was in the way.

Eternatus liked some of the new words Leon-worm's mind provided.

//BLIGHT// the //DOG// snarled back. 

But Leon's mind held more than just information about //CELLS// and //PRISONS//

There was //ARE YOU SURE THIS MUK IS DOWN HERE? WE'VE BEEN GOING UNDER HALF THE CITY IN THESE TUNNELS , RAI//

Their //MINE// was not good at directions... but where it had gone, Eternatus could follow.

Eternatus nosed around the back of their lair and found a spot where air blew in. A second hole. Small, very small. But the //CUR// was on the other side of the den opening. Eternatus pondered and then flattened their crest down.

"See the hole? The purrloin went in, Where the head fits, the rest follows..." Leon had a memory of mother-worm talking about another creature mingled with memories of the under-city //RAI, I'M PRETTY SURE THE INTERNET DOESN'T WANT TO KNOW ABOUT THE GREAT MUK-HUNT OF '17... HOW DID IT EVEN FIT IN THERE? ARE WE EVEN STILL UNDER THE STADIUM?//

Eternatus pursued the concept of //MOTHER// as they slid silently out of the small rear exit of the den, //DARK NIGHT. STARS SINGING.// their head turning for the massive stone walls of the //CITY// and then down the sides to the //EXIT GRATE//

Human-larva grew *inside* each other and then plopped out?

Ew.

Eternatus was a good minute distant from the den-exit when the //SWORD CUR// felt Eternatus being too far away to simply be sulking in the ground and howled, leaping to give chase.

Ha! Too slow! Eternatus was nearly to the wall, picking up speed and the //GRATE// would fall to their power, but the //DOG// once again would be limited by its //SWORD//. And the other, the //SHIELD// was much too far away, lurking outside of the den that Leon //MINE// had been taken to.

Eternatus would have to retrieve their Leon soon. So long as the bond between them existed, the //DOGS// could not finish binding them.

So long as they had Leon, Eternatus could be free.

But first...

There was a worm to fry.


	4. Sonia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sonia has questions.
> 
> And she's going to get some answers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still going! Fresh new brain dump, get your fresh new brain dump.
> 
> Warning for Gloria's slight violent attitude, she's Scottish.

Sonia stood back from the corkboard and sipped at her tea as she studied the various papers and photos she'd tacked up. Everything that she'd gathered on the Darkest Day was here, from photos of the geoglyphs, the statues, the tapestries and historical records. The last had been the hardest to acquire, the custodian of Hammerlocke Keep's archives was far stingier about letting her have access than Raihan was for allowing her into the vault. It had taken dragging the protesting woman outside to show her the devastation of the Second Darkest Day for the archivist to even acknowledge that it had happened. (Sonia was never letting anyone accuse her of missing out on events by being too busy reading, honestly, the woman had thought the whole thing was a rather boisterous match and she'd lodged a complaint to the gym!) Sonia had her rotom snap picture after picture of ancient documents to go over, being moaned at all the while about damaging light. (As if these tomes had even been taken off their shelves in the past century!)

Then she spent the better part of an evening trying to translate the old ledgers. Fortunately, Leon wasn't one for complaining much as she sat by his hospital bed. The rasp of the ventilator was rhythmic, along with the low chirp of the heart monitor. They were going on the third day now, and the Professor from Kanto, Willow was his name, had taken a look at Leon and checked the brand, still glowing, along his ribs and shaken his head. "It's up to them to sort it out. Either the bond stabilizes... or it doesn't." The look in his eye though... Sonia figured the man had already written Leon off.

Showed how much he knew. Leon was for the most part... an accommodating fellow. Wanting to make people happy and far too prone to sacrificing his own wants for others. At least right up until you got him into a stadium, and then all the niceness and yielding vanished and he went for your throat. If Leon was in a fight for his life, Sonia wasn't going to bet against him. But she would read to him thousand year old documents all night long, horrible stuffy boring treaties, just to make him suffer a bit for making her worried.

The end results were all here though. And the more she looked, the more she realized what a snow job had been done to Galar by a king from a thousand years ago. He'd blocked up the statues in Stow-on-Side, ordered destroyed several runestones and then commissioned the tapestries to have the two 'champions' depicted without the titans. That one of the champions apparently bore a lot of resemblance to him... well. Someone was certainly itching to be seen as a 'true' King. Kicking that whole institution to the kerb two centuries back had clearly been one of the better moves of their ancestors, even if it had led to the eventual power gap that gave rise to Macro Cosmo.

But with everything she'd assembled, Sonia was seeing all the gaps. The Darkest Day was triggered with the release of the Dragon, and *ended* with it being sealed away. Only Eternatus wasn't currently sealed, but the storm had ended. Yes, it had been beaten down, but it was currently still active. The death of Rose nearly two days ago proved it, and it had wriggled about in the labyrinth under the city before popping out and sequestering itself into a den in the Lake of Outrage, with both titan dogs now patrolling the area, trying to ensure it didn't strike out again.

It was at bay... not sealed. But the raging Dark was gone.

"Find the variable," she muttered to herself, sipping at the tea and peering at a photo of one of the few remaining ancient runestones. It was slickly polished on one side, faintly curved and depicted a dynamaxed pokemon breaking out of an egg. Newly hatched? It was up in Circhester, part of a private collection that was last displayed sixty years ago, part of the revamping of the old gym challenges into the more formal Challenger's Cup. She'd tried reaching out to the family, all old nobles, to see if they had anything else in their collection and was firmly rebuffed. She'd sent a message to Melony, to see if the Ice Leader could shake anything out of them for her. "What happened this time that didn't happen then?"

She ticked things off one by one. "It broke out. Out of what? What was holding it the first time? What caused the breakout to happen?" She jotted that down on a bit of paper and stuck it to the top of her corkboard. "Rampaged about the countryside, causing mon to dynamax all over the place...." she paused and pressed her lips together. There'd been weeks of pokemon dynamaxing erratically, combined with some explosive rumbling from the power plant. Rose trying to break it out, and covering it all up. She made a note of that, then told her rotom to search for any unexplained earthquakes over the last... ten years. Anything that wasn't on a fault line. She was sure she remembered at least one or two that had happened. "Double check anything that was called a mining accident too," she added. 

"Then Zacian and Zamazenta appeared and picked two champions to aid them and sealed Eternatus back away. Only this time, they couldn't because it took Leon. A bonded titan can't be sealed." She twirled the tip of her hair idly and then made another note. Did the Darkest Day end before or *after* it had bonded with Leon? She stared at everything she'd pinned up and frowned. She needed answers. From someone who had been there.

Both times.

It wasn't hard to find Gloria, the young girl hadn't left Hammerlocke and Hop's mother had taken her under her wing and put her up in the same hotel suite that they were staying at. 

"I thought about going home but..." she gave Sonia a one shouldered shrug and kept brushing out her ninetales. "Not a lot of point really. Everything is on hold, waiting. I thought about heading out into the Wild, camp out and just be for a bit, but Hop..." another shrug. "He needs someone to take him out of his head, give him a fight so that he can *do* something other than just sit and wait."

"then you don't mind me borrowing you for a bit then? I've got some things that need bouncing off another skull."

"And mine is suitably sturdy enough for it?" The girl flashed a bit of a grin at Sonia and then clicked open the ninetales ball and recalled it back in. "I guess I can fit it into my busy schedule of doing a lot of nothing."

"Cheeky girl." Sonia started leading Gloria back to where she'd been working.

"Weald born and bred, you know it. You know my da called after. Wanted to know if I was alright or should he call in the Clans and come storming up north raiding like the old days."

Sonia gave her a long look, "He wouldn't... oh he would, wouldn't he? He's a Warden of the Hills, right?"

"Right in one. Hates staying home too long, thinks Postwick is too crowded. But he was there to watch the finals and ..."

"Allow me to thank you for telling him you were fine. You did tell him you were fine, right?"

"Well, if you start hearing pipes come droning over the cliffs of the Wild? Put on a tartan."

"Very cheeky girl. Here we are, my office away from the office."

Sonia poured tea for the both of them while Gloria looked at the corkboard, her fingers running over a few of the pictures. "You've been giving this a lot of thought, haven't you?" Gloria asked accepting the mug from Sonia and sipping at it.

"And now I'm trying to close all these holes in the story. Around a thousand years ago, that's when the narrative changed, and the two other titans were written out. Everything after that is suspect."

Gloria nodded and looked back at the board and then pointed at the note with the question "What stopped the Darkest Day?" on it. "Pretty certain it's because we beat the stuffing out of Eternatus and it scarpered off."

But did the storm end before or *after* it possessed Leon?"

Gloria opened her mouth and then frowned and took another sip of tea, thinking hard. "It had knocked Leon out and the storm was raging like mad. There was all this.... pressure... on us. Me and Hop, we couldn't get our mon to do anything, it was suppressing all our moves. Hop then had the idea of using the sword and the shield. From the Weald. Just like in the tapestries... it just felt like the right thing to do. And Zacian and Zamazenta were just there. It all, felt *right*. Like this was supposed to happen. And we battled, it wasn't easy, but I could feel it you know? Right away. That we had the edge now, and it was only a matter of time to bring it down. And we did."

Sonia bit at her lip, wanting to ask a dozen questions but she needed Gloria to finish.

"It came crashing back down and it was *done*. We all knew it. The storm. It was fading out and that's when... it looked at Leon." Gloria set the mug down and took off her glasses to rub at her eyes. "Zamazenta howled in so much anger. It fled, Zacian went after it and then Leon, well... he went mad." Gloria sighed. "So, I guess it was before. The storm stopped before. Zamazenta wanted to kill Leon, Hop was trying to protect his brother and Leader Raihan showed up and knocked Leon down with a sleep. Um, the end? For now?"

"For now," Sonia agreed. So many questions! And with every answer, so many more popping up. "How did you and Hop even have the Sword and Shield? You followed Leon and Raihan down to Hammerlocke, right?"

"Right." Gloria rubbed at the back of her head. "It was after Circhester, you know? When we saw that tapestry in the diner? Hop was so sure that the scene was in the Weald. Then there was that whole thing with loads of pokemon dynamaxing all around, it was while we were challenging Spikemuth. Hop wanted to go check out the Weald and..." Gloria broke off and shook her head. "It just *felt* like it was something we should do. You know? Just nagging at us until we went. But once we went and found the shrine and collected the artifacts? We stuck them in our bags and went back to Hammerlocke and it was like..." she paused and blew out a long breath. "I didn't even think about it again until we were facing down Eternatus."

Sonia mentally put a new pin in place. "Gloria? How long have you been bonded to Zamazenta?"

Gloria looked over at her.... and her eyes bled over from green to gold.

"THIS LINE OF QUESTIONING SERVES NO PURPOSE." The shift of tone coming out of a young girl's throat was jarring, but Gloria wasn't the only Weald born and bred in the room.

"I think it does. How long have you known the seal was breaking?"

Gloria's lip pulled back into a wordless snarl, "A SEAL BREAKING BECAUSE OF HUMAN MEDDLING. FREEING THE BLIGHT AND THINKING THEY COULD FEAST ON IT'S POWERS."

Sonia balled her hands into fists. "How long?" She asked again.

"WE CALLED. THEY CAME. THEY CHALLENGED. WE ACCEPTED THEM." The titan gave a pause, eyes ticking to one side like it was thinking. "THE CHILD REMEMBERS IT BEING WHEN THE FALLEN ONE BROUGHT THEM A GIFT OF MON."

"Months ago," Sonia said, her throat going tight. She remembered that, Hop and Gloria getting lost in the Weald looking for a stray wooloo. "It was months ago. They said they saw a pokemon that they couldn't even affect. You could have warned us months ago!"

"THAT IS NOT MY DUTY."

"Then what *is* your duty?"

Gloria had an excellent scornful look that Zamazenta was taking advantage of. "THE CALAMITY CANNOT BRING DESTRUCTION ONTO GALAR. IT MUST BE SEALED."

"Even though right now it's not bringing destruction?"

"WE MUST PROTECT."

Oh, well, give her an opening like that? Clearly Zamazenta had never had to try to keep loopholes out of its arguments. "Eternatus went wild because Rose unsealed it and tried to control it to fuel his power plants. But it stopped. It's been almost three days now, and even unsealed, it's not a threat to Galar." Perhaps it was a threat to a few specific *people*, but Rose was the only person it had killed in the prison. It had left everyone else alone. "Why did it go mad the *first* time three thousand years ago?"

"NOT RELEVANT."

"I think it is. I think knowing the *why* is about the most important question to ask. Why did it go mad the first time around?" Sonia walked up to her corkboard and pointed at the runestone of the hatching pokemon. "The stories all say its seal was broken. Was it a seal? Or an *egg*? Did someone break it out of its egg? Spilled out too soon? You can't crack an egg early, it kills the baby." She could see it. So powerful, but confused, in pain and lashing out.... "Is that what happened?"

There was silence from Zamazenta. Sonia pressed.

"It was Arceus wasn't it, who called you and Zacian. Told you to protect Galar. To stop the *threat*. Is there a threat to Galar right now?"

Gloria staggered, her eyes going from gold back to her normal green, one hand going up to her head and wincing. "Bugger the fuck out of me."

"Language, young lady. What would your mum say?" Sonia put a hand under Gloria's elbow to help balance the girl.

"To tell my da to knock the titan's balls off? She's got a curry recipe for that I think. I... hell. Marnie told me back in Stow-on-Side - we were changing for the gym challenge - that there was a bruise on my back. I didn't think anything of it. Now I'm thinking Zamazenta didn't want me thinking of it."

Sonia sighed. "Dogs. they're really task oriented. Give them a job and they want to do it above everything else. Like a yamper seeing a wooloo that needs herding. They really don't like thinking they're not a Good Boy. How's your head?"

"Pounding. Could do with a paracetamol or two." Gloria looked at the corkboard and all the data laid out and then back at Sonia. "Zamazenta... he and Zacian really want to make Eternatus go away. If Leon doesn't pull through? I don't think me and Hop are going to have a choice."

"We'll swing by the nurse's station on the way to Leon's room. And don't count him out just yet. He's still undefeated you know."

Gloria rolled her eyes. "Yes, with that unbeatable Charizard... I *know*. I had a plan for that though."

"So cheeky."

"It's my charm."


	5. Piers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is a difficult conversation. Good thing that there is also tea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh Piers. I wrote and discarded four attempts at writing this chapter. Finally Kabu came in and went, the problem is, there needs to be tea.
> 
> And lo, there was tea.

Piers got off the train at Motostoke, frowning. Of all the phone calls he could have received, an invitation from Kabu to come to his house wasn't one he'd ever expected. It wasn't that they didn't get along whenever they had a chance to meet, but the number of connecting interests between them began and ended with the League, and Piers had already formally announced Marnie's induction as the Spikemuth Leader the previous day. It was odd enough to prick his interest though and considering it was barely four days since Darkest Day Part 2, things happening out of the ordinary were worrisome. 

The neighborhood Kabu lived in was on the outskirts of the city, bordering close onto the Wild Area, definitely not too posh, but when you headed up one of the Premier Gyms of Galar, the Wild Area was just a rather big backyard that one didn't have to mow. A young woman (Kabu's daughter? Did he have one?) met him at the door and offered him a set of house slippers after letting him in.

Right. Hoenn customs and all.

After tugging off his boots and putting on the slippers, he trailed after the girl to a patio that led to a formal garden. Kabu was sitting at a low table with another person, and they both rose to greet him.

"Thank you for coming on such short notice," Kabu said, stepping forward to shake his hand (Piers was glad, because the whole bowing thing really wasn't for him). "Have you been introduced to Professor Willow yet?"

Piers gave the other man a long look and then offered his hand. "Not all official like, no. But then, I'm a bit out of the official game now." Piers lifted a brow to emphasize that in an unspoken, 'so why am I here' punctuation.

"True," Kabu conceded. "But of us all, you know Leader Raihan perhaps the best."

This was about Han? "Not what I was expecting you to say, to be fair."

Willow shook Pier's hand. It was a fair grip. Firm, quick shake, without a squeezing contest. "It's about Leon, really," Willow said. "But Kabu thinks that you'd know best how Raihan would react to what I need to say."

Piers shot a look at Kabu, at the somber expression on the man's face. "Alright, you have my attention."

"First, tea." Kabu said firmly.

Piers had heard about Hoenn tea ceremonies, seen one on the telly even. There were a lot of steps though and apparently business couldn't be discussed until *after* it was all done. Which meant, Piers realized, Kabu was taking this whole upcoming conversation very seriously. Kabu gestured him to sit at the small table on one of the cushions that surrounded it. Piers had just finished figuring out what to do with his legs when the woman reappeared, setting water and washing cloths by all three men and vanishing again.

Without a bloody sound. Apparently Kabu was fronting for an entire ninja clan or something.

Piers wiped his hands down and picked up the cup, turning it a little to have a look. Not as fine and fancy as he was expecting, it had a few odd bumps and wriggles in the clay and a bit of roughness to the outside, though it made holding the cup easy. The design though...

"Vibravas?" Piers asked and Kabu gave an incline of his head. Chosen deliberately then, one of those subtle Hoenn things, Raihan's flygon wasn't near as famous as his duraludon, but for people who knew Raihan his flygon was his *oldest* pokemon. Whatever it was Willow had to say, Kabu was going to end up defaulting to Raihan's side, supporting the Dragon Gym.

"A promise of a good harvest, a healthy child, and fearlessness in battle. Vibravas are always a welcome sight over the rice fields," Kabu said with a nod.

The next thirty minutes were downright surreal. Willow and Kabu would talk about the flower arrangement, a scroll on the wall, the pleasantness of the breeze, all while Kabu's ninja girl silently slipped in an out, eventually grinding up green tea into a powder, and whisking the blend for them all to drink and compliment on. Then she vanished it all away to be replaced with small sandwiches, bowls of fruit and what looked to be *actual* proper tea and startlingly, closed the screen door with just a bit of a click. The first noise he'd heard her make.

Apparently that was the signal that all the ceremony was over because Kabu gestured to Willow and Piers, "Thank you for coming to my house. What business do you have for us, Professor?"

Willow nodded and cleared his throat, "We all know why I came. Three titans awakening all at once is enough to worry a lot of people, and even though my specialty is studying habitats, I've been interacting directly with titans for over a decade. The bonding process isn't always a straightforward thing, but from what I've seen so far, Champion Leon's bond is going poorly for him. He's had two cardiac arrests..."

"Two?" Piers frowned. "I thought it was just the one, right before they put him on the ventilator."

"Two," Willow confirmed. "The second was late yesterday afternoon, accompanied with a seizure. Normally a titan is capable of fixing quite a bit of damage done to the human half of the partnership, that Leon is on life support means that Eternatus isn't trying to keep Leon alive, or it doesn't know *how* to. However four hours ago, it stopped actively channeling itself into Leon." At the blank look Piers was giving him, Willow elaborated, "When a titan is actively overriding the human personality, the eyes change color, the titan's brand glows and additional growths may appear. It stopped. Eternatus is no longer attempting to actively control him."

"Which is a good thing, right?" Additional growths was a fine understatement for the spines and segmented wings that had ripped out of Leon's skin during the first day.

"It means the bond is stable. So long as the Champion lives, he's going to be bound to Eternatus. Which makes the dragon unsealable."

Piers looked over at Kabu, who was holding the cup with the vibravas on it. Then he looked back to Willow. "You are a right cold minded bastard, aren't you? But then this isn't your home is it? When all this is said and done, you're not the one picking up the pieces."

"Which is why this can't be my decision," Willow replied. "Champion Leon's medical proxy was Chairman Rose according to his records on file. With Rose dead, and no Chairman to replace him, the proxy falls to the next most senior member of the League."

"And his actual *family*?" Piers knew Leon had one, his mother was practically parked by his bedside right now.

"Apparently aren't on the list." Well, there was a lot to unpack with that statement, one that Piers wasn't willing to touch with a very long pole. Probably a sleeping copperajah on the other side with Rose's name on its pokeball.

"So, Raihan." Right. Kabu was already on board with whatever decision Han was going to make about this. "He's the one on the hook over whether or not to what, flip the switch and see if Leon lives or dies without life support?"

"It's entirely possible that once Eternatus realizes that it needs to bolster its host's system in order to keep the bond intact, it will."

Not just flipping off the ventilator then. But making sure Leon *died*. Yeah, there was about a zero percent chance that Raihan wouldn't have tried to take off Willow's head for making that insinuation. Piers looked over at Kabu. "You already know he'd never go for it."

"I believe though it needed to be said. To speak the words into the open air and be judged rather than have it fester in the darkness of possibilities and whispers."

Willow looked grim, "I'm not just saying this to be.... efficient about handling Eternatus. Even the best cases of a bonding with a titan, there's a mental disturbance. A person is going from being alone in their mind to suddenly having something not even close to human come and install a door and wander in whenever they please. A mental collapse to the point of ego death has happened, even with titans who want to make a partnership and what happened between Leon and Eternatus was anything but willing. Less installing a door and more knocking down walls with a wrecking ball. You need to think that there may not be anyone to save."

"And here I thought I was the morbid one," Piers muttered, but Kabu was right. This sort of thing needed to be said out loud. "But you wanted my opinion, right? I think if Leon was ready to be written off, he wouldn't have been struggling against the dragon this long. If he was all brain blasted and gone, maybe, but we don't know that. It's only been what, a few hours since the thing's stopped trying to shake him like he's a rattle? No, Han's not going to make any sort of call about putting him down." Said out loud so it could be properly kicked in the teeth.

Piers held up a hand and then pointed a finger at Willow, "And no, just because I'm Dark, doesn't mean I'm on board with a little insurance on the side to make things easier for everyone else. Poison has its place in the world, same as Flying or Fire."

Willow held his hands up in a conciliatory motion. "I asked Kabu to bring in another gym leader, he chose you based on your familiarity with Leader Raihan, that's all." Piers gave him a narrow eyed look, but when Kabu nodded in agreement, he let some of the tension building up in his shoulders relax. Piers didn't offer an apology for his accusation though. Not after the idea that things would be simpler if Leon was dead.

Piers excused himself shortly after finishing the meal, Kabu's ninja producing his boots and a packed snack for the train ride back to Hammerlocke. He peeked into the box and shuddered a bit at the cute little pokemon faces staring back at him. Was.... he supposed to *eat* that? Hoenn. Seriously. And people thought Spikemuth was creepy. He chewed over the conversation instead. 

"Quit being lost in your own head there, mate." He said softly. "Faster you wake up, the faster you'll be shut of people who think they know what's best for you."

His own family, closed out of medical decisions for him. Piers almost regretted Eternatus killing Rose so quickly and causing a lot of answers to be harder to find. 

Almost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I got a whole backstory about Kabu, his wife and his wife's semi-legal Vivillion collection that didn't get put into this chapter at all, but by god they had to tell me all about it. Look, see, Kabu may be the sport celebrity, but his wife makes *bank* off her handcrafted kimono business. She gives him an allowance and allows him one room in the house that he's allowed to put his things in and they are very happy. The tea girl is her apprentice... look, I said they wouldn't shut up so now you all know too!


	6. Leon II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The education of baby dragons starts with, don't bite that. Leon's a little late, but he'll try.
> 
> He'd also like to wake up now?

So.

Waking up was apparently a thing Leon had taken for granted for far too long.

For years he'd become accustomed to rolling out of bed early, he was generally expected to be somewhere by no later than nine am, and depending on where he was, factoring in a commute of over an hour was possible. Possibly two if he was going clear down to Motostoke or Turfield. He'd managed to get his morning routine down to less than a half hour of bathing, dressing and eating, twenty five minutes if he could eat breakfast on the go, or a meal was part of his first itinerary. So if he was up by six in the morning that gave him time to see to his team, check his phone for messages, maybe even get in a morning jog before having to depart for the day.

So.

He was used to being able to wake up easily.

Sleep to wakefulness, it should have been a snap, but there was resistance. He'd read once that some people woke like they were coming out from under the water to slowly breaking the surface, only this was less like water and more heavy mud. It pulled and dragged at him and all of his senses were muffled. The more Leon struggled upwards, the harder it got. His breath felt off, the rhythm of his lungs unnatural. Sound warbled and wavered in his ears. But if he could just... a little more.

Something chirred.

And sleep slammed him back down to the inner recess of his mind where the dragon nosed about.

"What happened?" Leon wasn't expecting a reply from Eternatus, but the titan swiveled their head around and snorted, crest flaring.

//SQUISHY// the single word came with a flood of irritated imagery of Eternatus trying to move Leon's body, to bring him to where the titan had gone to ground, only to be faced with a determined Shiinotic chucking sleep powder right into their face. //SQUISHY NEEDS SQUISHING//

"You can't go around squishing all your problems," Leon said, watching as the dragon circled around him restlessly.

//CAN// Eternatus shot back letting out a huff that was almost adorable if it hadn't been coming from sixty feet of chitin and barely contained primal energy. //SQUISHED ROSE//

"Rose?" Leon whispered, shocked to his core. "You killed Rose? Why?"

Eternatus ceased their circling of Leon and poised in front of him, jaw snapping in warning at Leon's face. //ENEMY. TRIED TO DEVOUR ME! NOT PREY!// The dragon's faceted eyes glittered and they flung their head back to shriek their rage while Leon struggled to not flinch at the assault on his mind of images.

Deep slumber ripped away into //LIGHT/SOUND/PAIN/CONFUSION// Tethers holding them down. Cables hooked into their ribs, probes pushing into their //HEART//

Tearing their way free. Struggling up and //OUT// and assaulted by the //STAR TOO CLOSE TOO BRIGHT// Gathering darkness to it to hide. The arrival of a //CHALLENGE//

//SENT YOU TO CLAIM ME.// Eternatus hissed, slamming their head into Leon and he hung onto the dragon's crest and rode out the impact. //HIS CHAMPION//

The dragon twisted, coils looping around Leon.

//MY CLAIM STRONGER. MADE HIS CHAMPION MINE. SQUISH ROSE. WIN//

Leon hung on to the dragon's head and just tried to process all the information being flung at him. Rose had been the focal point of his life since he was ten, a brand new Champion thrust into a position that he may have earned, but was not nearly mature enough to manage. He'd given the reins over to Rose willingly at first, glad to have someone who could tell him what was expected of him. What a Champion was supposed to be. As the years went on and there was no sign of anyone successfully taking the title from him, the control started to chafe. But for every decision that he'd pressed for, Leon ended up ceding more in return because when it came to deals and power brokering, Rose was a far better player than Leon.

One day. Couldn't Rose have given him just *one* day?

//SAME OUTCOME// Eternatus sniffed and then pulled back, staring at him. //WHY MATTER?//

"Gloria. The battle with her..." Leon paused and licked his lips before looking at the dragon. "She and Hop, they were both improving so fast. When they got Raihan's badge I could feel it. I'd be facing one of them..."

//THE CURS WORMS// Eternatus grumbled. //ALREADY BOUND. SHARING STRENGTH// Eternatus pushed at their bond, still a new, fragile thing trying to settle between them and then showed Leon what they had seen on top of Hammerlocke's Spire. Gloria, Hop, the two dog titans. With firm, *established* bonds. Not new. Not fresh and perhaps still breakable.

"She could have won..." Leon whispered and closed his eyes for a moment, savoring the possibility that never was. "She had the strength to do it."

//WORM WAS NOT ROSE'S//

"Did he know?" Leon was breathless with the revelations. "Did he know about the other titans... that they'd interfere?" Had Rose known about Hop and Gloria and that they'd never have let Eternatus stay unsealed if they were the Champion?

//DON'T CARE. SQUISHED. YOU ARE MINE. CURS CAN SUCK IT//

"Language!" Leon was shocked enough to shake a finger at the dragon, pulling it back before the titan's maw snapped shut where his hand had been. "And no biting!"

//LEARNED WORDS FROM MINE. AND WILL BITE. WILL SQUISH//

Arceus preserve him. His dragon was a *brat*. A very lethal *brat*. "No biting. No squishing. Or *else*."

//OR ELSE WHAT?// He could feel the titan's amusement at the thought that Leon could somehow threaten it with anything.

"You will get no skritches." He felt Eternatus prod at his mind, hunting down what a 'skritch' was and then the dragon turned their head away and... sulked.

//DIDN'T WANT ANY SKRITCHES//

Leon deliberately didn't answer. Pushing at a young dragon tended to make them shove back just as hard. Ignoring them with intent though...

//NOT WANT SKRITCHES//

Leon hummed and folded his arms close to his chest and continued to pay no attention whatsoever to Eternatus. Chitin slithered and clattered and there was a head bump directly into his back.

//SAID NO//

Sulky, bratty, young dragon of unknown cosmic power with no concept of restraint... or overkill. Rose...gone. Just like that.

//GIVE SKRITCH, MINE//

"We're going to have to talk about that biting business." And the dragon's habit of referring to Leon simply as Mine, instead of his name, but baby steps. Leon slid a hand under the frill of Eternatus's crest and found where it joined into the dragon's skull. He kept the touch soft and gentle and Eternatus gave a few jerks and starts, but slowly a low chiming purr started up.

Gone. Rose had been so much of his life. Even after he'd stopped being so grateful and started resenting the limits placed on him. Rose managed everything. Where he went, how he dressed, when he took time to see his family. It was like the ground had been ripped out from under his feet and he was in free fall.

//WHY SAD? DON'T NEED HIM TO FLY//

"I hated him. I loved him."

//MINE NOW. DOESN'T MATTER//

"Feelings aren't that simple." He gave the titan a final skritch and then pulled his hand back with a pat. Eternatus made a very unhappy grumble at the loss. "I need to wake up."

//CAN'T REACH YOU// The dragon flashed images, they knew where Leon was, and had delved into his memories of multiple hospital visits to patients to understand the layout, but it was a fairly modern building, unlike the Hammerlocke prison. All above ground construction and the patients in critical care weren't near any convienent windows. There was no chance for Eternatus to access him without having the two other titans harrying them all the way.

"I'll just have to reach you instead," Leon replied. His second attempt at waking up was better and worse. It was still a struggle through the mud, and the closer to the surface he got, the worse he felt. There was still something wrong with how he breathed. Pain was filtering in, frantic signals that his body had been trying to deliver to his brain and now that he was becoming aware again, all those messages stampeded at him like a crowd of fans storming the Leauge shops whenever a new trainer card or official jersey of Leon's was released.

For a moment he could hear voices, feel light burning into his eyes even through closed lids, there was a sharp chemical smell hitting his nose and *something* dug deep into his throat.

It was too much. He retreated.

Eternatus stared at him questioningly. //WHY BACK? NO SQUISHY//

True, there hadn't been a Shiinotic this time around. "Guess you did a really good number on me. Think there's a bit more wrong with me than just a thumping."

//SO FIX?// Eternatus kept staring. Leon had done quite a bit of damage to them in their fight, but it was mostly recovered.

"Not a titan. Or even a mon. Can't just chuck a full restore on a human and call it good." He knew from far too many hospital visits that pokemon professors and people doctors had spent years trying to figure out why what worked so well on mon just flat out failed to do the same with humans.

Leon still had residual embarassment for when he was thirteen and had chirped out that well, humans couldn't go in pokeballs, so that's why they couldn't be fixed up at a pokecenter. He'd thought he was being clever by saying that and well, yeah.

Not his finest moment there.

//IF MINE NOT FIXED. THEN SKRITCH//

"Are we going to talk about the squishing habit then?"

Eternatus snapped their jaws at him and then turned away with a decided flounce.

//SQUISHING ENDS PROBLEMS//

"It won't fix what's wrong with me." Leon pointed out. The dragon's tail smacked on the non existant ground of Leon's mindspace.

//SQUISHING ENDS MOST PROBLEMS// Another irritated tail smack. //MINE SQUISHES PROBLEMS// Eternatus shoved a harvested memory of Leon taking down a dynamxed perrserker at him.

"I fought it, yes. It was angry and lashing out. Not every problem is fixed that way. Most mon just want a place to exist." Leon threw back memories of towns and cities where humans and mon lived together, and the wild areas that were where mon who didn't care for close ties to humans could roam.

"Yes, a Champion is supposed to keep people safe. But not just by... squishing. By encouraging them to become stronger themselves."

//MAKE THEM DO OWN SQUISHING//

"To take care of issues before squishing becomes an answer. Find a solution that works for everyone."

//STUPID//

It wasn't exactly a victory, but if Eternatus was sulking and tossing sassy remarks, that was a lot better than oh, leveling a town or frying out Leon's brain. "Think about it. You can see what I mean in my memories." Leon was *pretty* sure there were a few good examples in there.

He hoped.

He rested a little more, gave Eternatus another skritch, which the dragon refused to acknowledge that they really liked, though the odd, chiming purr was a dead give away. And then tried once more to wake.

It was easier this time. The thick heavy weighty mud was more like murky water. hard to see through, but there was a definate source of light to aim for instead of just having to thrash around and hope he wasn't going the wrong way. The surface appeared rapidly and he could feel himself breathe. Proper breaths, not the odd, too rigid cycle of the prior two attempts. Discomfort began to pile on, but before he could do more than register the pain, he was through.

Everything hurt. His limbs, his chest, his *hair*. He'd had a right proper hangover once (or twice) in his life, and this made it feel like a minor headache. Just trying to open his eyes took effort. The light was bright, his lids felt stiff and gummy and like they were weighted down by a thousand pounds of sand. Something was shrilling noisily off to one side, drilling into his skull.

Leon shifted, trying to twist away from it, and oh. Oh no. Moving was a mistake, as his stomach *rebelled* and instinct drove him to roll further, despite the pain and he was halfway off the bed but everything was coming up *now*.

There wasn't much of an everything to get rid of though. Thin bile that left a sour pain and dry heaves that wracked him for several long minutes. But it was time enough that there was a shadow falling over him, hands gripping his shoulder and words he couldn't understand being spoken above him. He needed another minute to just recover and pant harshly after, not willing to move again, though someone was brushing a fall of white (white?) out of his vision and a cloth was brought to his face, damp and cool, taking away the residue.

Leon let them pull him back a little, hissing as each motion jostled *something* and finally his brain started processing the sounds... the words... coming from the person aiding him.

"Champion Leon? Sir, please relax. Please lie still. There's a doctor coming. Do you understand? Champion Leon?"

He blinked, and again, things starting to focus. There was a man there, in hospital garb and a mask and a frightened look in his eyes.

Was... he someone to be afraid of?


	7. Raihan II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crises don't last forever.
> 
> Eventually life becomes normal again.

New normal.

It was a phrase Raihan kept hearing more and more as the days went on. People were chatotting the words back and forth to each other as if by saying it, things would be alright. That Macro Cosmos would suddenly stop flailing about like a Hydreigon with two severed heads, that the trio of titans lurking outside of Hammerlocke in the Lake of Outrage would suddenly up and vanish, that Leon would suddenly roll out of bed, don his cape and hat, flash his Charizard sign at people and tell them to all have a Champion day.

He was really starting to hate that phrase. Even if some of that was applying to him.

Because Raihan had a 'new normal' routine now.

He'd spend his mornings at the Gym, going over what needed to be done in and around Hammerlocke. Most of the actual damage done to the ancient castle was in the power plant and spire, but things still needed cleaning and each day started with learning what had been fixed yesterday. With the Macro Cosmos people looking at him like he'd somehow know what all to tell them to do next. He was a Gym Leader. Not an engineer! Rose apparently had staffed his corporations full of people who had no initiative. Every decision made of any importance had always come down through Rose. He'd been less the CEO of Macro Cosmos and more a king with a court full of sycophants.

It should have been Oleana stepping up to fill the void, but the moment the news of Rose's death had reached her she'd simply resigned, handed over all her access cards and keys and vanished. Supposedly someone was investigating, but that wasn't Raihan's problem. He had more than enough of his own to try and figure out what the hell was going on with her.

So mornings. By the time he was done talking at people and to people and giving instructions, he'd usually had maybe an hour or so to actually do things like work with his team and check on the pokemon the Gym was boarding. Dragons after all, didn't understand why you were so busy that you couldn't take the time to pay attention to them. They just knew they were being ignored, and a slighted dragon had all sorts of ways to make you regret ignoring them. 

With the amount of work on his shoulders, Raihan was tempted to skip lunchtime altogether, compress it down to a fast sandwich on the go between one mini crisis and the next, but Raihan had an all 'new normal' lunch routine.

He'd go to the hospital.

There'd be a meeting with the doctors that were monitoring Leon, Raihan made sure Leon's mother was included in the meeting because she *should* have been the one they talked to first but somehow Rose had managed to ruin that too. Then he'd take her and Hop to lunch. She was sitting at her son's bedside for hours and hours every day, and she deserved more than just a tray full of cafeteria food. He'd walk them back after, and if he used that time to check on Leon, well. He was worried after all.

The afternoon was probably the best part of his day. He'd take his team, a list of all the trouble spots around the city and *settle* things. There'd been a lot of problems the first few days, but as the week progressed the power mostly stayed on and as Hammerlocke wasn't burned to slag by a rampaging titan, the number of people and pokemon trying to take advantage of the chaos of the Darkest Day began to recede. 

Dinner was another trip to the hospital, and another meal with Leon's mum. He'd spent more time with her this past week than he'd had with his own family the past year. He tried not to feel too guilty over that, but he'd checked in with them to make sure they were okay and if they needed anything and after getting reassurances they were fine, he'd given a half promise to meet them when he'd had time.

He would. Eventually.

After dinner though, he'd say farewell to Leon's mum at the hotel she and Hop were staying at ("Call me Twinkle dear," she'd said, but it was hard to be that informal with her) and walk back to the hospital and sit in the chair in Leon's room.

And he'd talk. About the day. About the messages Leon was getting from well-wishers. About how amazing the doctors thought he was doing (and never about the concerns that they had). "Hey, day eight and you're off the ventilator. They're pretty sure you tried to wake up yesterday too. Give it another go there, Champ." "So looks like your roots are growing in, everything turned stark white but you've got some fresh dark stubble there mate. Guess you aren't going to be setting a whole new fashion trend after all." "So, get this Lee. Today I had a three hour meeting with the League on whether or not the three titans that popped up are *legal*. I mean, they *pre date* the entire League, but I guess if people are starting to argue about stupid shit, things are getting better..."

Leon would twitch and shift sometimes, and once his eyes fluttered. But he didn't wake.

Visiting hours ended at ten and he'd go home and curate his social media until he'd created enough positive and uplifting messages to post into his timeline later that people would think he was on top of everything and confident about Galar recovering from the Darkest Day.

It was his 'new normal'. And he hated it.

On the twelfth day, Raihan swung into the hospital, nodding at the staff, his hands jammed into his coat pockets, to collect Hop and his mother for their usual lunch. Hop though was sitting outside Leon's room, fingers dug into his Dubwool's fleece, absently scratching at the base of the big sheep's horns. Raihan's heart skipped a beat because why was he waiting out here?

"Hop?" He called out, getting the boy's attention and he was sickly relieved to see that Hop didn't look distressed, just the sort of flat numbness that came with spending way too long waiting on an event that may or may not ever happen.

It would. Leon would wake up.

"Hey," the young boy said to Raihan, giving him a nod, but not stopping his attentions to his mon.

"What are you doing out here, and without your usual partner in crime?" Gloria tended to be here in the mornings, though she generally declined Raihan's lunch offers, saying that she'd rather go to the battle café and have a go at the daily scuffle.

"Left with Sonia a few hours ago. Something about Circhester and some old rocks." Hop made a bit of a face, a flash of regret. "Mum's in the room with the staff, giving Lee a bath and a change of his sheets and there's not really a lot of room for more people so I said I'd be out here."

Raihan couldn't blame him. He'd watched the orderlies work once, pushing Leon from one side to the other to deftly change the sheets out from under him and seeing his friend and rival moved around like a limp doll had been... well. He'd wanted to go out and punch a few things after.

Hop didn't seem to want to keep talking, so Raihan settled himself against the wall to wait, pulling out his phone to check messages and fire off a few replies. It wasn't a long wait before the door opened and the two orderlies came out with a cart and then Leon's mother.

"Mrs. Charavaaha..." Raihan started to say only to be pinned by an amused but stern look. 

"I've said before, you can use my name," she chided him.

"Calling you Twinkle feels just wrong you know," he replied. "Twinkle's a name for ..." He broke off, realizing there was no good way to end that sentence.

She laughed at him. Nicely, but she still laughed. "I wasn't *always* a boring old mum you know. Cut quite the figure on the dance floor."

Raihan was determined to not picture that at all and manfully dodged the conversation back to the much safer subject of lunch. "I thought maybe we could swing over to the Unovan deli? It's a nice day and they've got outside seating."

They stopped by the lead doctor on Leon's case and it was around five minutes of the man pointing at some squiggly lines and saying the same thing as yesterday. Leon's brain still worked, he still breathed and the level of toxicity in his system was decreasing. If he stayed stable, they should talk about moving him to a long term care ward. At least by now he addressed Leon's mum directly, even if it was Raihan who had to be the one to confirm her wishes.

The deli was a bit more than a fifteen minute walk from the hospital, but Leon's mum.... Twinkle... had told him that spending some time walking was fine with her after spending most of the day inside. "I usually have a longer walk just getting to Wedgehurst and the shops. Postwick doesn't have much past a grocer's and the post after all." It was weird hearing that, objectively Raihan knew that Leon was from a small border town sitting on the edge of nowhere, right next to a whole stretch of very Wild territory; but Leon was nearly synonymous with Wyndon and the massive stadiums Rose had built after rising to Chairman (and Leon to Champion). He wondered what Leon preferred, of all the years he'd known him, they'd never really had those sort of conversations.

The deli wasn't terribly busy and they were able to place an order quickly and while Riahan politely tried to argue with Leon's mum (Twinkle, he was *never* getting over that name ever) about paying, Hop rolled his eyes and slapped some money down to cover for all three of them. It was after they'd settled down at the table with the drinks, waiting on the lunch order to come out that Raihan's rotom gave a startled chirp. "Zzzt, boss it's a call from the hospital. Dr. Lewis's number."

Raihan nodded to his rotom to connect the call, "This is Raihan," he said. "Dr. Lewis, is everything all right?"

"We need you to come back right away," the rest of the sentence was lost as Hop jerked to his feet, chair crashing back behind him, his eyes wide and fearful. 

"We were just there! We just *left*!" Then the young boy turned and started sprinting back down the street, at the third stride he'd pulled out a pokeball and threw out his Corviknight, heedless of the people scrambling to get out of the way. Hop didn't bother apologizing, leapt on the great bird's back and with a rush of wings was gone, arrowing back towards the hospital.

Raihan had to squash down the urge to follow Hop's impulsive flight. He wanted to call his Flygon out and dash back to the hospital, but a teenaged boy zooming down the streets was one thing, for the Hammerlocke Leader to be doing the same? No, he couldn't. Also, he'd be leaving behind Leon's mother, and frankly she had more right to go flying down the streets than he did.

So despite what he wanted, he turned to look at Twinkle, and motioned to his phone, "Doc, I need you to say that again?"

"I said that Champion Leon's regained consciousness. We're fairly sure that it is him, and not the Titan." Raihan mutter a thanks to Arceus and Twinkle had a hand pressed to her mouth, she closed her eyes for a moment and took a breath and Raihan could see for a moment the way Leon would collect himself before a match with the way his mother squared her shoulders and looked over at him.

"There's a Corviknight stand about two blocks up. Wait here, I'll get one and come by for you."

"Don't rush too fast," she replied, waving over at one of the servers lingering on the edge of the small dining area. "I'll have them box up our food, we've already paid for it and missing meals never does anyone any good."

He blinked at her for a moment, trying to figure out how she could be this practical and then gave himself a shake. "Right, I'll... be right back then." He didn't exactly run the two blocks, but with legs like his he didn't need to run to move fast. He still attracted attention though, a few people calling out to him as he made for the taxis in a hurry, and more than one phone being lifted his way.

He was really going to need to spend time getting his social media back in order later.

The trip back was spent in silence and Raihan paid off the cabbie then threw in a tip for not striking up a conversation. 

The scene in Leon's room was one that Raihan had been quietly praying for. Leon was sitting up with Hop on the bed gripping him in a tight hug. Hop was crying, his face buried into Leon's hospital gown and Leon had one hand shakily patting Hop's back, his head lowered to rest against the top of his brother's, the long braid of bleached white hair falling over a shoulder.

A dozen different things popped into his head to say and Raihan discarded most of them as too personal, too sentimental or maybe just really damned inappropriate to be said in front of Leon's little brother and mother (though he was starting to think Twinkle already knew some of those phrases). "Looks like you finally stopped hitting the snooze button, Champ?"

"Oh, and the squishy Shiinotic had nothing to do with that?" Leon's voice was crackly and weak, but there was some of the man's usual snark under it. As Raihan was trying to process that somehow Leon knew which mon had kept him thoroughly whacked down (just how aware had he been?), Leon looked up and...

Wow.

That was... new.

Raihan knew that Leon's eyes weren't really a pure, pupiless golden, footage of his first two years as Champion had his normal eye color of soft brown and Raihan had seen him without his contacts a few times (he could count them on one hand since Leon had a persona to maintain and the Champion was almost always 'on') but the color bleaching that the Titan had subjected Leon's hair to was not the end of the changes.

Leon's left eye had burst blood vessels in the sclera, turning the entire outer half deep red, but that was something that would fade away as he healed. In both his irises though the color had been stripped away leaving only a thin dark rim to mark the edges and deep in the center of each pupil was a gleam of red, a promise that the Titan was *not* gone from his rival and friend.

Leon's new eyes combined with the loss of weight, the pallor in his skin and the bleached hair made him look like a revenant about to bring down curses and haunt an old graveyard. It brought Raihan up short for a moment and he heard the soft intake of breath from Leon's mum just behind him.

"I look that bad, huh?" Leon croaked out. "The nurse was afraid of me too..."

"Nah, mate," Raihan moved forward again, coming around the bed to perch on the end and give Twinkle room to come up and hug her son. "Just glad it's Hop there since if you're gonna be trying to eat someone's brains, there's none there to snack on so he's perfectly safe where he is." Hop twisted enough from his grip on his older brother to give Raihan a stink eye. "You're not nearly as spooky as when you were sporting spikes and wings and a 'Die puny mortals!' attitude. 'Course you tend to say that anyways every time anyone faces you on the pitch."

"Boys," Twinkle said with a bit of reprove in her tone. "None of that now. Lee's awake and sounds like he needs something to drink, where is the staff?"

"Kinda.... yelled at em mum," Hop mumbled, still giving Raihan a bit of a glare. "They wanted me to stay outside, but Lee's *fine*."

Leon gave his brother another pat and dropped his head again so it was resting on Hop. "Tried a drink before Hop came in, after waking. Sicked it all up, so rather not any more right now. Maybe in a bit."

Twinkle wasn't entirely appeased and Raihan sat back and just watched for a moment as she fussed over her son, getting him to eat a few ice chips and fiddling with the bed so Leon could lean back. He really ought to leave the room, now that Leon was awake he could tell the doctors he wanted his mother to be his medical proxy from now on, the way it should have been.

He probably should leave.

He had a lot of work to do.

He could stay a little longer though.

It was only temporary.

Not ever going to be a new normal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ha! Take that procrastination and distractions! I got this chapter done!
> 
> I went looking up Desi names because I wanted to call Leon and Hop's mum something. I decided on Charavaaha for a last name (it means Shepherd, which is a fairly apt name for a farm family) then went sifting through female names and found Twinkle. Seriously. Twinkle is a listed name for Indian women and two of the three Twinkles found on Wikipedia are Indian artists. And frankly, a woman named Twinkle *absolutely* would name her kids Dandelion and Hopscotch. (She only ever breaks out their full names though when she's cross at them. Mother's privilege!)
> 
> As for Leon's eyes (and hair) while I know that canonly his hair is supposed to be a natural purple, (and if you take a good hard look at his mother, her hair is the same color and her eyes are a light brown/gold but with normal pupils) I decided for purposes of the fic, he dyes his hair and wears contacts. I mean, in game you can make your eyes into rainbows and dye your hair green. So purple and gold is not that hard a stretch, and Hop mimics so much about his brother, that matching Leon's 'look' is just another part of his need to be Leon's successor.


End file.
